


fatherless showdown

by okayantigone



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, BAMF Tony, Dark Tony, Gen, Implied Past Child Abuse, Murder, Not Steve Rogers Friendly, not team Cap friendly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-09
Updated: 2018-09-09
Packaged: 2019-07-10 08:49:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,514
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15945902
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/okayantigone/pseuds/okayantigone
Summary: in the aftermath of siberia, tony stark visits helmut zemo in prison to air a few truths out between them.





	fatherless showdown

 

“i really am quite sorry,” helmut zemo says. he is placid now, in his cage, and his eyes are sad as he makes peaceful eye contact with tony. “your personal tragedy became the collateral damage instrumental to my revenge.”

 

tony stark stands behind the line on the RAFT prison. his face is purpled with a mottled bruise, and his arm is in a cast, fingers twitching minutely. there is a hard set to his jaw, and his eyes are clear, lined heavily with the crow’s feet of a man who used to smile. he isn’t smiling now. but he doesn’t speak either, so zemo continues on.

 

“i feel especially bad, since you are the only one who took responsibility,” he says. his fate is sealed – he will serve consecutive life sentences, and he will die in prison, forgotten by everyone. unmourned, unremembered. “you resigned from the avengers. you came to the relief efforts. you used your personal wealth to mitigate the damage you caused. i wish i had found a way to – “

 

“to mitigate the damage you caused me?” stark speaks for the first time. his voice is rough, coming out of the depths of his freshly reconstructed sternum. not that zemo knows that.

 

“yes,” the man says quietly. he appears genuinely remorseful. how simple it must be, to do a bad thing, and say sorry, and meet the consequences, and find peace in it. tony had tried. it hadn’t worked. and now he’s plain tired of apologizing.

 

“well,” stark says. “i think we’re past that.”

 

he tilts his head to the side and studies zemo for a while. there’s a cool calculating look in his eyes. mere weeks ago he had stood in the same spot being belittled by clint. and now clint is in the wind. now they are all in the wind. and there is only one person in front of tony that he can blame. and the only one who seems genuinely sorry. he should rename himself irony man.

 

“yes,” zemo agrees. “i am sorry nonetheless.”

 

“what are you sorry for? you didn’t kill my parents,” tony says. zemo’s eyes are trained on the way the fingers of his left hand keep trembling lightly.

 

“but i killed someone else’s parents,” zemo says. the wakandan king had been on his side. and it was unfortunate that he’d had to become another collateral on the road to ensuring that the likes of captain america were stopped for good.

 

stark shrugged. it was an awkward motion with his arm in a cast, but he made it work. “i don’t particularly care,” he says easily, “about the personal tragedy of a man who was so ready to spit upon his father’s legacy before his body had even cooled down.”

 

his voice was light, but there was a ruthless savagery in his voice. zemo had been too focused on the avengers as a whole to remember – stark had always been a monster.

 

“this is what it’s all about, after all, isn’t it,” stark continues. his voice has the same cadence as his expo speeches. “legacy. king t’chaka’s legacy. steve rogers’ legacy. yours. mine.” he takes a deliberate step over the yellow line that visitors aren’t meant to cross.

 

it had not occurred to helmut zemo to be afraid. he had come to expect prison. had been ready for it.

 

stark moves so that his breath ghosts over the smooth glass of the cell.

 

“my father’s legacy,” he adds. his voice is soft. reverent.

 

“i never disparaged my father in public.” he adds with a little shake of his head, suddenly finding his shoes more interesting than the sokovian prisoner. “he was… well. he wasn’t my hero. but he was an american hero. he created captain America. he was on the manhattan project. he _defended_ our great country in the face of adversity!” stark’s voice raises.

 

“and i walk in his footsteps now. my name built on _his_ name. my power, resting on _his_ personal sacrifice. the loss of my family. of my childhood. for it all to have been worth it, that legacy has to remain intact. do you understand what i am saying?”

 

when he looks up, his face is almost unrecognizeable, striken in the same way as when he’d watched the tape.

 

helmut is beginning to understand, yes, though he is still working on believing.

 

“there is _no_ such thing as the avengers civil war,” stark says softly. “there is no such thing as the winter soldier. certainly, there can be no such thing as my father’s oldest friend being his killer. of my father’s other oldest friend being _my_ attempted murderer.”

 

it’s not that helmut doesn’t hear the words. it’s that his perfect grasp of english fails him. he comprehends them each individually. he isn’t ready to comprehend them as a whole.

 

“even you, with all your money, can’t possibly accomplish that.” he whispers finally.

 

“i couldn’t,” stark agrees. he’s looking somewhere to the side of zemo’s head. the bruise on the side of his face is too dark, too painful, too recent. “but i could… with the full support of the current presidential administration. secretary ross has already agreed to step down. he regrets that he pitted the avengers against each other in a cheap bid to further his own political agenda. he regrets that colonel rhodes was injured in a tragic, unsanctioned training accident behind stark industries’ back.”

 

“no,” zemo says sharply, insistently.

 

“the American public doesn’t want an American civil war,” stark says quietly. “they don’t want captain America to be the villain. _i_ don’t want captain America to be the villain.”

 

“there’s no way they’ll let you do that,” zemo whispers. it’s finally downing on him what is about to happen.

 

“this is about legacy,” stark says softly. the glass door slides open. stark steps into his cell.

 

he is unarmed and injured, wearing just one of his soft, well-tailored suits, and zemo is a trained black ops agent. he could easily take stark out, but he is frozen in place, because what stark is suggesting is too terrible to imagine. too terrible to suppose that a man like that could put so much pain aside to keep a fable alive.

 

“my legacy will _not_ be that i was the man whose arrogance tore the avengers apart,” he finishes quietly.

 

he takes another step forward, and helmut folds when the backs of his knees hit his mattress. he sits on the bed, staring up at the face of the merchant of death.

 

“why?” he manages finally. it comes thick and his accent bleeds through heavily. “why is it so important - ?”

 

stark takes something out of his jeans pocket. it’s a pen. he clicks it. a few times. the piercing screech it lets out doesn’t seem to affect him. but helmut is paralyzed for real now, unable to even blink.

 

“because of new york,” stark says indulgently. “because it will happen again. and when it happens… and if the avengers aren’t there to stop it… whatever the outcome… it will be on us.”

 

the pen slides back in his pocket. his hand settles over zemo’s throat.

 

“because of you i have no friends left,” stark says quietly, almost delicately. “but i do have a legacy. and it will not be tainted. i really am quite sorry. for your personal tragedy. and for the vapid, hollow failure your revenge turned out to be. this is _my_ revenge. for the things you personally cost me. and because i can’t look the real perpetrator in the eye and do this to him. i suppose in a way, you too are my collateral. consider the damage mitigated.”

 

he squeezes. hard. it’s easy to strangle someone paralyzed and incapable of fighting. easy to be the monster. easy to be the bad guy. but at the end of the day, they had all been in agreement – ross-the-senior, ross-the-younger, president ellis, t’challa, and the entire goddamn committee… they had all been in agreement.

 

destroying the media image of the avengers was not welcome. was not conductive in the long term. and if tony got to get a little personal gratification out of it? well. no one could blame him.

 

whatever clint, or natasha, or wanda or steve chose to believe about him… he was not a coward. he was not about to hide in a bunker and wait for holy providence to present itself. he wasn’t even going to use one of his still-trustworthy guns. he had gone in with his hands. looked the man in the eye. at least he and barnes could agree on this much.

 

stealing t’challa’s revenge was just the icing on the petty cake.

 

“tony,” rhodey had said. “this won’t make you feel better.”

 

but tony remembered gulmira. remembered how he’d felt after. “i know, platypus. but it won’t make me feel worse.”

 

there’s no pulse beneath his fingers. he looks up at the camera in the corner of the cell, and he blinks.

 

friday will know to delete the footage. he gets up, straightens his suit out and he leaves.


End file.
